The Foods That Make Billions a new BBC Open University co-production

The Foods That Make Billions, BBC2

A new BBC TWO series explores how big businesses feed us. With unprecedented access to the world’s largest food companies including Kelloggs, Nestlé, CocaCola PepsiCo and Danone, this is the inside story of how the explosive growth of the industry and how over the last sixty years we have emerged from a time of scarcity and entered an age of convenience, choice and plenty.

The Foods that Make Billions is a three part series explains how the food business has taken three cheap commodities in cereals, water and yoghurt and transformed them into everyday necessities and highly profitable brands. Sixty years ago bottled water, breakfast cereals and yoghurt pots were practically unheard of in Britain, now it seems we can’t live without them. Along the way, this transformation in what we eat has created multi-billion pound industries from nothing.

Produced by the Money Programme team in partnership with The Open University the series looks in detail at what really lies behind creating world beating brands, told by the people on the inside of the industry. The series reveals what goes into selling us some of our best known brands in the water, dairy and cereal aisles of the Supermarket.

At the heart of each episode are the compelling stories of brands that have become part of our everyday lives over the decades from Corn Flakes to Alpen, Evian to Perrier, Ski Yoghurt to Yakult and Actimel.

Episode One: Liquid Gold. 21.00 BBC TWO Tuesday 23rd NovemberHow the bottled water industry has grown from nothing to become one of the biggest success stories in the modern food and beverage industry in just forty years.

Episode Two: The Age of Plenty. 21.00 BBC TWO Tuesday 30th NovemberHow business has turned grain into the biggest success story of the modern food industry. Inside the cereal box is the most sophisticated confection of invention, processing and advertising that modern business has seen.

Episode Three: Pots of Gold. 21.00 BBC TWO Tuesday 7th DecemberHow yoghurt has been transformed from an unknown hippy food into a super food in forty years. Along the way, yoghurt has driven a health revolution in the modern food business.